


Love in Action

by youhappenedovernight



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, minor mention of Rachel Amber/Amberprice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 00:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15852798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youhappenedovernight/pseuds/youhappenedovernight
Summary: "– or some other poetic shit like that.  Max knew her before her life went to shit.  Max knew who she could be, if she just tried.  She knew what to say and what to do to bring out the best in her – this week proved that."





	Love in Action

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's my first shot at this fandom and pairing.
> 
> All based on the premise that a) the storm doesn’t happen (I don't know how, man. Stop asking so many questions), b) it’s in a timeline where David is warned about Jefferson, all events of the week have happened (except the storm), and c) everyone survives
> 
> Mentions of Rachel Amber are based on my interpretation of the amberprice relationship, which is not particularly warm and fuzzy, although I understand her role and the role of that relationship in Chloe's life. I think we've all had Rachels in our lives, or were the Rachel in someone else's life. That being said...not warm and fuzzy for that aspect.

A rush of blue sped past Joyce and David.  It was a typical sight, but it was also 11 PM.

 

“Whoa, whoa.” Joyce called out, “Where are you going?”

 

“Gotta see Max.”  She felt around for her keys.  She looked haggard, almost – scared and rushed.

 

“Now, wait a minute, Chloe,” David started, “You know that campus is on lock down because of Jefferson and either way, there’s a curfew.”

 

“So?”

 

The look in her eyes was familiar to David.  Not because he’d seen Chloe like this before, but because he’d seen the look in his own eyes at the thought of losing Joyce.  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his keys.

 

“Do not get seen, go straight to the girls’ dorm, and don’t cause a ruckus.  Please.  There’s two guards on shift tonight.”  He tossed the keys to Chloe, “Let me walk you out.”

 

Chloe wanted to frown, but she couldn’t curse her good luck.

 

“Chloe, I can tell you don’t want to talk about whatever it is you’re about to do.  And I know I’m not your father, but I hope I can at least be your friend.  Is everything okay?  I know, with everything about Rachel...”

 

“It’s not about Rachel or that situation.  I mean, it is, but it’s not.”

 

“Well, just don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

 

“Do I ever?” A pause, “Don’t answer that.  Be back.”

 

“Be careful.” David said, but Chloe was already in the truck and the taillights were already fading into the distance.

 

Blackwell wasn’t that far away, not even 10 minutes.  But Chloe wished she could get there faster, so she could stop thinking about what she was going to say.  The shit was only making her want to chicken out.  It was the reason she was still awake though she was bone tired.

 

_The air coming through the window is still warm and moist, but there is no storm on the horizon thanks to Max.  She saved the whole fucking town and goes back to her dorm like she did nothing at all.  Super Max.  Wonder Max.  Just **her** Max._

_Only Max could show up when she needs her and just like that change everything Chloe thought she knew about herself.  She used to tell herself she was over Max.  That she was a different person now and, even after seeing Max again, that she and Max were too different now for it to work.  That she just missed her as a friend, not as – whatever it was she wanted when she was 14.  But Max was never that easy to shake.  Only Max could come back and literally travel through time and space and go through actual hell to keep her alive.  Only Max could come back to her and look like **that** – like the Blackwell version of Ellen Page with a camera in hand and those stupid, beautiful freckles.  Stupid, gorgeous hipster, unfairly making her chest hurt just by looking at her._

_She groaned in to her pillow, “Fuck this shit.”_

 

And that was how Chloe found herself standing in front of the girls’ dormitory at 11:24 at night, fingers itching as she unlocked the door, heart racing as she knocked on Max’s door.  She could hear a ruffling sound – the shuffling of a girl getting out of bed.

 

The door opened only a crack at first.  Max’s hair was disheveled and her eyes were a little puffy, but the moment she saw Chloe, there’s something in her eyes that changed.  Something that made Chloe feel like she can’t breathe and she doesn’t want it any other way.

 

“Chloe?”

 

 “Hey, can we...can we talk about some things?”

 

“Are you okay?  Is everything okay?”  Max stepped aside and Chloe walked into the room.  Illuminated softly by the glow of the paper lamps hanging beside the bed.  With all her photos.  _So Max_.

 

“About that kiss a day or so ago?”  Chloe looked anywhere but at Max.

 

“You can talk to me about anything but that.  Listen, I don’t...it was a stupid dare and I was stupid to do it...”

 

“So you didn’t mean it?”

 

“No, Chloe, I did...it’s just...like I know Rachel’s _not here_ , but I know what you had with her and it feels wrong to come in between that...and I don’t even know really how you feel....you’re my best friend and I don’t want to ruin that.  Especially after fucking everything up for five years.”

 

“Rachel knew about you, you know?  Every detail because I never shut up talking about you.  And yes, I loved Rachel, she was important to me, and maybe she loved me back, in a way, but the truth is, she was playing me or I think she might have been.  Or I thought things were different from what they really were.  I honestly don’t know any more, Max.  Everything we’ve learned has really fucking turned me upside down.  And honestly, even if she wasn’t...”  Chloe roughly dragged her hand through her hair.  She didn’t know where to begin this story, not sure she even wanted to tell it, but at the same time, she had to make Max understand what Chloe had known down to her marrow when she was a preteen, even before she understood it, “Even if the thing with Rachel was what I thought it was, it wouldn’t have fucking mattered.  Don’t you know I’ve loved you since I was like 12?  Not as a friend, but as _something else, whatever else_.  _Whatever_ it was that I had with Rachel, it wouldn’t have mattered in the end.  Not as long as you were still on the planet.”

 

“Me?”

 

“Yes, you.  Of course you.  Always you.  And what about Warren?  It’s not like you’re not out there dating.”

 

Chloe hated admitting it, but jealousy was one of the things she excelled at.  And seeing Warren around Max made her chest burn.  The boy was crazy about her.  Why wouldn’t he be?  And the worst part?  He was so good for her.  A nerd, a guy with a future.  Not a fucking burnout, drop out, dead weight like Chloe.

 

“What _about_ him?”

 

“You were going on a date with him.”

 

“Wasn’t a date.”

 

“Did he know that?”

 

“Chloe.  Warren and I are just friends.”

 

“I’m sorry.  He just – he’d be good for you, you know?  I know I said that I didn’t think anyone but me was good enough for you, but that’s because I’m just a fucking jealous idiot.”  Chloe could feel herself getting frustrated with her own feelings, “I’m tired of being angry, I’m tired of just....fumbling through life.  The world is fucking cruel, Max, and I don’t really believe in _anything_ anymore but I believe in you.”

 

Somewhere deep down, Chloe knew this was where she would end up, next to Max.  Always next to Max.

 

“Chloe...”

 

“Let me finish.  Seriously, before I chicken out.  What I’m trying and failing to say is that you kissed me, and it meant everything.  I got scared and jumped away from you, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do, especially since I dared you to do it.  All I’ve been thinking about is kissing you again, if you have freckles _everywhere_ , and how I won’t be able to fucking handle it if you left again.  With you, I feel like I did when I was a kid – before Rachel, before dropping out, before my dad.  Like I can take on anything as long as your next to me.  Like the world is my fucking oyster or something stupid like that.  You make me feel like _me_ again.  I love you and I can’t remember when I didn’t.”

 

“It meant everything to me too.  You mean everything to me, Chloe.”

 

They’re both crying.  Chloe thought it might be okay to kiss her again.  Maybe Max needed it as much as she did.  Cupping her face, she leaned forward and kissed her, softly but reverently.  Like a prayer.  Like a lifeline.

 

“We are such losers.”  Chloe laughed between tears.

 

“We are _so_ losers.”

 

“But I’m your loser.  If you, like, want that?” Chloe wrinkled her nose in disgust, “Sorry, I’m still really shit at this even after spilling my guts.”

 

“I want that.  I love you too, Chloe.”

 

“Good.  Great. Hella great.”

 

No one will remember who started their third kiss – the first real one – but it wouldn’t matter.  Max sighed gently into Chloe’s mouth and all Chloe could do was melt.  It was like finally getting all the things she had wanted her whole life – long before she knew she was allowed to want them.  Chloe’s hands were clinging to the thin fabric of Max’s shorts, but Max’s hands were everywhere. There’s a part of her that squeals, a part of her that is 14 and is _totally_ melting, _“Holy shit!  I’m making out with Max.”_   But those thoughts are quickly replaced but something much more adult, something hungrier and needier, when Max whimpers into her mouth.

 

“Oh, fucking Christ.” Chloe was the first to tear away, panting, “I should, uh, I should probably leave or something.  This is getting really intense and, in a minute, I can’t...” She motioned between the two of them, hands still shaking.

 

“Do you not want to?” Max’s big doe eyes were all sad looking, staring up at Chloe like she’s the only person in the universe, like she’s the only thing that matters.  It occurred to her that no one had ever looked at her like that before – with such open and reckless admiration.  It made Chloe’s heart hurt in the best way.

 

“Trust me, I hella want to.  Like, man, I . . . yes, I really want to, but it’s your first time, right?” She didn’t want to assume, but she knew Max and she got a lot of context clues here and there.  Max had always been so oblivious to romantic attention, so it wouldn’t surprise her if Max was a virgin.

 

“Does it make a difference?”

 

“Of course it does.  I don’t want – listen, I know what it’s like to regret it.  I don’t want you to regret it.  You deserve perfect.”

 

“With you, it will be perfect.  And I could never regret it.” Max’s hands were full of Chloe’s shirt and her eyes are dark with want and Chloe – poor Chloe – she didn’t stand a chance, “So, please, stay.” Max whispers.

 

And so, she does.

 

 

 

Chloe woke to silence and sunlight, her arms wrapped around Max’s body, and their hands clasped.  For the first time in a long time – five years, maybe? – Chloe feels content in just being there.  No need to “medicate.”  Not even an urge for a cigarette.  Because her best friend is here, she gets to make love to her, and hold her just like this.  She gets to love her and be loved by her.  She never thought Max would come back, but did she fucking ever, traveling through time and space just to save her.

 

With Rachel, it’d been different.  Not different _bad_ or different _good_.  Just different.  She’d been so eager to please Rachel, so afraid she’d leave her once the allure of adventure wore off, that she’d lost herself somewhere along the way.  Of course, she still would’ve dyed her hair, still would have smoked pot, still would’ve wanted to get the hell out of Arcadia Bay.  Rachel had pulled her out of a dark place.  She’d shown her things and taught her so much about herself and about life.  She made her feel less lost. But she threw herself so deeply into Rachel, and then, into finding her, that she’d forgotten all the other parts of Chloe.  It was easier that way.  Chloe could forget her own problems if she absorbed Rachel’s.  It may not have been that healthy, but it worked.  She loved Rachel.  God, did she love her.

 

But she wasn’t Max.  Max was love in action – or some other poetic shit like that.  Max knew her before her life went to shit.  Max knew who she could be, if she just tried.  She knew what to say and what to do to bring out the best in her – this week proved that.  Max got wrapped up in her bullshit, solved the _fucking_ murder of a girl she didn’t even know just _because that girl was important to Chloe_ , and saved their piece of shit town like it was nothing.

 

Her phone was buzzing on Max’s little table.  Max only rolled over in her arms and mumbled incoherently into her chest.  She thought she was still sleeping until Max kissed the center of her chest.

 

“Put the phone down.” Max mumbled against her.

 

“Can’t.  It’s David, he wants his keys back.” She sent him a quick text that she’d meet him in an hour in the Blackwell parking lot before sitting the phone back down.

 

“Oh, is that how you got here last night?  I got so...um...caught up that I didn’t even think about how you in here.”

 

Chloe chuckled, “Yeah, we were a bit preoccupied with mushy shit.” She kissed the top of Max’s head, “And sexy shit.” Max looked up at her, her cheeks red, “You don’t regret it, do you?”

 

“Never.  I love you, Chlo. I’ll never regret anything I do with you.” She blushed harder, “Especially not _this_.”

 

Chloe’s eyes began to water, “Fuck, is it dusty in here?  You have to stop saying sweet shit like that, I have a reputation to uphold.”

 

“Oh, yes, you’re so tough.”

 

“I am.  Grr.” Chloe said, but pulled Max tighter, “God, this is the best.  Tell me it’s real?  That you’re my girlfriend and that all of this really happened?”

 

Max grabbed her hand and placed it against her chest, “It’s very real.  And I didn’t even rewind.”

 

“You’re hella better than me.  I would’ve rewound last night at least twice to hear that one sound you made.”

 

“Chloe!”

 

“Sorry, it’s just true.  And you’re cute when you blush.” Chloe yawned, “You think anybody would mind if I showered here?”

 

“Not if I shower with you...”  The blush spread practically to Max’s navel.

 

“Wow, Caulfield.  That’s bold of you.”

 

“I’m just relying on my rewind in case we get caught.”

 

“You are amazing, Super Max.”

 

“So amazing you’ll buy me waffles later?”

 

“Oh you’re gonna get hella a lot more than waffles later.”


End file.
